Modern English Lexicology Chapter Two English Vocabulary: A Historical Perspective September, 2009 Wang Haizhen

Outline Presentations – G1, G4 (“ 族 ” ； “ 客 ”) – G6, G7 ( 英语新词 ) – G9, WHZ (Hjelmslev, Bloomfield, Halliday, Saussure) Chapter Two: A historical perspective of English vocabulary

Chapter Two: A historical perspective To which language family (and branch) does English belong? How many periods can the development of English vocabulary be divided into? What are they? What are the characteristics of each period?

2.I Language family language genetic classification 语言的谱系分类 Sino-Tibetan 汉藏语系 Indo-European 印欧语系 Semito-Hamitic 闪含语系 Bantu 班图语系 Uralic 乌拉尔语系 Altaic 阿尔泰语系 Malayo-Polynesian 马来 - 波利尼西亚语系 Indian 印第安语系 …

2.1.2 The Indo-European Language family Definition: the family of languages spoken originally in Europe and parts of southern Asia. Family members: – Indo-Iranian group 印度 - 伊朗语族： Persian 波斯语, Sanskrit 梵语 … – Armenian 亚美尼亚语族： Armenian – Slavic 斯拉夫语族： Russian, Polish – Hellenic 古希腊语族： Greek – Italic 意大利语族： Latin, Romance languages 罗曼语言 (French, Italian, Spanish, Portuguese, Romanian) – Celtic 凯尔特语族： Gaelic 盖尔语, Welsh 威尔士语, Breton 布列塔尼 语 – Albanian 阿尔巴尼亚语族： Albanian – Germanic 日耳曼语族： English, German, Dutch, Yiddish 依地语, the Scandinavian languages

The Germanic languages Study Fig. 2.1 and understand the position of English in the family. 英语属于印欧语系日耳曼语族中的西日耳曼语 支。

2.2 The English people and the English language (historical periods) The Celts (5000 BC) 凯尔特人 The Roman invasion (55 BC) The Roman occupation (AD ) Germanic tribes’ invasion (AD 449): Angles 盎 格鲁人, Saxons 撒克逊人, Frisians 弗里斯兰人, Jutes 朱特人 (Figure 2.2)

2.2 The English people and the English language (3 questions) 1. Do you know the origins of the English place names Lancaster, Winchester, Chester, Doncaster? 2. Who were the founders of the English nation? 3. What is the origin of the word ‘English’? Key: (1) castra in Latin means ‘camp’ (2) The Angles, Saxons and Jutes were the founders of the English nation. (3) ‘English’ is derived from the language of the Angles. ‘English’ is older than ‘England’.

2.3 The development of English vocabulary (3 periods) SequencePeriodDuration of time Main feature 1Old English Full inflection 2Middle English Leveled inflection 3Modern English1500-Lost inflection

2.3.1 The Old English period 古英语时 期 ( ) Vocabulary size: 24,000 Still in use: 15% Main features: 1. The frequent use of compounds (e.g. banhus, hronrad; with might and main 竭尽全力, friend or foe, a labour of love 不取报酬的劳动 ) 2. The introduction of ‘loan translations’ ( 照外语字面的 ) 直译 语 (Table 2.2) 3. Full inflection 屈折变化，词尾变化 : four cases and conjunctions

2.3.2 The Middle English Period 中古英 语时期 ( ) The period was marked by the Norman Conquest (1066), when the French Duke of Normandy defeated the Anglo-saxons. England became a bilingual country: those with political and social power spoke French (beef; mansion; demand) ; while those boors and serfs used English (cow; house; ask). Main features: 1. A massive borrowing of French words into English vocabulary (jury, verdict; crime, gentle, judgment); 2. Fewer/leveled inflections: case, endings of nouns and adjectives, grammatical gender 屈折变化消失或简化

2.3.3 Modern English period 现代英语 (1500- ) The period was marked by the introduction of printing into England by William Caxton. The period is subdivided into Early Modern English ( ) and Late Modern English(1800- ).

Early Modern English ( ) Influenced by the Renaissance (early 14 th century -1650) 文艺 复兴：强调研究古希腊、罗马文化，在科学和艺术上取得巨大发 展；重要历史事件包括宗教改革、重大的科学发现和对非洲、亚 洲和美洲的探险 The most important impact was that thousands of Latin and Greek words were introduced into English, as translations of texts from these languages can not find precise equivalents in English. Words also came from other European languages, from North America, Africa and Asia. Over 10,000 new words entered the English language from 1500s through the 1700s. Examples: climax, appendix, exterior, axis

Late Modern English(1800- ) 3 main features: 1. Almost complete loss of endings (a synthetic language 合 成语言  an analytic language 分析性语言 ); 2. The unprecedented growth of scientific vocabulary (see Table 2.4); 3. The assertion of American English as a dominant variety of the language (‘linguistic imperialism’ 语言帝国主义 ). AE and BrE differ in pronunciation, grammar and vocabulary (Refer to Table 2.5).

To sum-up 3 origins of English words: 1. Native words 本族语词 (mainly words of Anglo-Saxon) 2. Loan/borrowed words 借词 (from Latin, Greek, French, German, etc.) 3. Neologism 新词

Assignment 1 (loan words) 法 / 日 / 德语借词 Find out at least 20 words in Modern English which are borrowed from French or Japanese or German, depending on your third language. Also give their Chinese equivalents. For Group 1.

Assignment 2 (loan words) 汉语借词 Find out at least 20 words in Modern English which are borrowed from Chinese/ Mandarin. For Group 2.